Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The big back patch

Back in the mid 1980's it just wasn't enough to have a black concert shirt plus tons of metal band buttons pinned to your faded denim jacket. No, you also had to have the big backpatch with a metal band logo sewed to the back of your denim jacket. I learned how to sew by hand due to these patches. My mother didn't approve of my love of metal so she said she would not sew the patch on for me. So I learned on my own and eventually sewed on a Metallica-Ride the lightning patch that I bought at the beach. Unfortunately it was a cheap one and the design started to rub off after a few months. So then I bought an Anthrax-Spreading the disease backpatch from a mail order catalog that advertised in the metal magazines. This one held up better and I had it on there for a few years. I stopped wearing that jacket around the early 90's. I recently discovered my Anthrax backpatch and it was still in good shape. I am saving it with the hopes of passing it on to my kids and maybe they will like it. Although perhaps it would have been better if I had a Guns and Roses backpatch. By the time my now two year old daughter or newborn son get to high school is probably about the time that Chinese Democracy will be released.

A few months ago I read an interview with a guy who had worked at Geffen in the late 90's/ He said that in August of 1998 he and others from Geffen went and heard all the music tracks that had been done for Chineese Democracy. He said they were all done and they were good, the only thing they were waiting for was the vocal tracks to be recorded. Apparently they never were done and line-up changes were made and re-writes and excuses just started coming from Axl.

I had a great denim cutoff which was covered in patches (main back patch was OZZY). I wore it over my leather bike jacket. One year at Donington Monsters of Rock ('85 or '86 I think), I fell asleep in the campsite with it covering me like a blanket (no tent, and it was raining). Unbelievably, when I woke up, someone had nicked it!!

"So, in closing, fuck you METAL MARK. Fuck you, fuck Lynch Mob, and fuck your shitty website!”
“I don't know who this METAL MARK is, but I know better than to waste my time checking out anything else written by this asshole”
-Mike